Blink-182 bassist
Mark Hoppus wrote the song in a short span of time concerning a fictional breakup with a girlfriend. Hoppus described a scenario, detailed in the lyrics, where former lovers meet in public and one is with someone new, "It really hurts when you aren't the person feeling the love, but you have to act like it's cool to save face." The signature guitar line for "Dammit" was created on an acoustic guitar that was missing two strings. Guitarist
Tom DeLonge considered the song a breakthrough in the band's songwriting. The song was recorded between December 1996 and January 1997 at Big Fish Studios in
Encinitas,
California. The song was written just outside Hoppus' vocal range, requiring him to strain to sing it (the song has a noticeably rougher and scratchier vocal track than the rest of the album). Already suffering from vocal problems due to lack of vocal warm-ups and frequent smoking, Hoppus ended up straining his
vocal cords significantly, forcing the band to cancel the final week of recording the album in December 1996. "I actually like my voice a lot on 'Dammit'. It sounds really raw and cool," said Hoppus in 2001. "But it's not a technique I would recommend for getting a good vocal sound. You know, smoking, yelling, all that." As a result of this incident, the chorus has always been sung by Tom DeLonge in live performances. From 2015 to 2022, guitarist/vocalist
Matt Skiba would take the lead on the chorus. "Dammit" is set in the
time signature of common time, with a fast tempo of 215
beats per minute. It is composed in the
key of
C major with Hoppus's vocals spanning the tonal nodes of
C4 to
G4. The song follows a common
chord progression sequence of
I–V–vi–IV. ==Commercial performance==